Horror 102: Children in Horror

The Bad Seed (1956) is about a mother, Christine Penmark, who slowly comes to grips with the idea that her eight-year-old daughter, Rhoda, might be a serial killer.  Rhoda, played by Patty McCormack, presents as almost perfect.  Rhoda believes that she deserves all the good things and when she fails to win a penmanship award, it brings out her innate amoral ugliness.  Her desire to have the things she wants leads to the deaths of two people.  Christine believes that she passed that amoral trait on to her daughter and as such, blames herself.  But Rhoda is very much her own person, and a very evil one at that.

I love, love, LOVE this movie.